Tor Levin Hofgaard

Tor Levin Hofgaard

PhD, president of the Norwegian Psychological Association

Norway

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Keynote

And then everything changes: The future of the psychologist profession in a post 4th industrial revolution world

Many of the advances in psychology and its application have been made possible because of a stable and predictable environment in education, labour organization, and in the way we generate and take ownership of knowledge and practical expertise. That is now all about to change: Enter the 4th Industrial Revolution; the world of robotization, artificial intelligence, and fusing of the physical, digital and biological worlds. And the world where all knowledge will be shared, practical expertise is communized, or equally or better performed by complex machines with artificial intelligence. We will face the challenge of routinization, systematization and digitalization of large parts of what we saw as our main function before. And where e.g patients will be in possession of their own health data, their own online AI systems for health, and where professionals like us might only be assistants in small parts of their recovery. The question will be what will be the tasks left for the profession in this world?

We are now in what I see as a new-Gutenbergian revolution, where we must expect the same large liberation of knowledge and practical expertise as the printing press did. Predicting what will be on the other side of the 4th industrial revolution is not the object of this key note. The main hypothesis is still that "everything will be different". What I will try though is to give the listeners a sense of urgency, so they go back home to discuss with their colleagues how psychology as a field, and psychologists as a profession, will meet this revolution - to stay relevant pre-, mid-, and post-revolution.

Short Bio

Dr. Tor Levin Hofgaard is the full-time president of the Norwegian Psychological Association. During his 11 years in this position so far, he has been responsible for the development and implementation of new forms of advocacy for psychology with the main focus on keeping the profession relevant for the future. He is a clinical psychologist with specialization in adult psychology and has been working in inpatient clinics with people with severe drug addiction and with psychosis and in outpatient clinics with people seeking help for complex mental challenges.